Author's time in Iqaluit inspires writing
Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services
Iqaluit (Jan 22/01) - During her 30 years in the North, children's author Jeanne Bushey became enchanted with Inuit stories, legends and culture.
Bushey, her husband and two young daughters came North from the United States. They lived for four years in Iqaluit before settling in Yellowknife for 20 more.
"I was fascinated," said Bushey about the land and culture. "And I found that the Inuit were really generous and helpful, and they were happy to take you into their culture."
The writer in her was compelled to put the experience on paper. Bushey first tried to sell a story about her own children missing the southern Christmas. The publishing company, Hyperion, wasn't interested in Christmas stories, but did want Arctic stories. The result was her first book, A Sled Dog for Moshi. The book, which came out in 1994, was illustrated by Inuit artist Germaine Arnaktauyok.
Bushey's most recent book, published in December by Red Deer Press of Calgary, was inspired by an Inuit legend.
The Polar Bear's Gift tells the story of a young Inuit girl who discovers the magic of friendship and compassion.
"I took the basic idea that there was a polar bear that gave out a magic bag of his fur. That was in the original (legend). But also in the original, the child was an orphan and the children stoned the child and teased her because she didn't have good clothes."
Bushey altered the story so it would appeal to southern children while still being faithful to Inuit lifestyle and legend. "Being a white person, writing about the Inuit culture, I try to usually to do it more on a multi-cultural level -- instructing the children in the south about what the life or the environment is like." But she works hard to keep true to the North in her books.
"Publishers are mostly from the south. And strangely enough, I never get questions from my publishers as to the authenticity of Northern details.
"What I get from them are questions about the way southern children will interpret certain things."
Bushey says that she often ends up having to defend the Northern position of the book, trying to keep the details as authentic as possible. Acknowledging that she was writing a work based on an Inuit legend, Bushey wanted Arnaktauyok to illustrate Polar Bear's Gift.
"She just was wonderful to work with. When I saw (A Sled Dog for Moshi), I thought she had picked the thoughts right out of my brain and turned them into pictures."
But Red Deer chose not to go with an Inuit illustrator.
"They were interested in a high-profile children's illustrator. Obviously, they were not concerned that I was writing out of my culture,"
"They felt that I was writing out of a milieu that I had lived in, and out of my experience as a Northerner."
They picked Vladyana Langer Krykorka, who illustrated many books by Inuit children's author Michael Kusugak.
